Are you writing dialogue the wrong way? Every scene in a novel or story is created with four main pillars: action, dialogue, description, and internal thought. So if your dialogue isn’t working, your entire story could crumble. Have people told you your dialogue sounds stilted or unrealistic? Do you want to increase the tension in your dialogue? Are you making grammar… View Post
I knew Sarah Fontenelle what seems like a lifetime ago — when we were both carefree twenty-somethings, acting in the occasional play at The Actor’s Theater of New Orleans. I knew Sarah was a psychologist, so I was surprised when I saw on Facebook that she and her father (also a psychologist) had started a publishing company called Le Bovier… View Post
Souped-Up Suspense! If you’re writing/revising a mystery, thriller, horror, or suspense novel, or if you’re simply looking to add more page-turning suspense to your manuscript, this do-it-on-your-own-time course is for you. The lessons (in both written and audio format) offer practical tools and writing exercises, as well as examples from novels such as Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Drowning… View Post
Supernatural twins and old-timey Spiritualism?! I was scrolling Twitter last year when my eyes snagged on a tweet with the words “runaway twins” and “Spiritualist show.” It was from author Amanda Glaze; she was announcing a book deal for her supernatural YA historical: The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond. I marked the book as something I would one hundred… View Post
The Sharp Sting of Rejection Oh, rejections. They slowly chip away at your self-confidence, and we writers pursuing publication must endure a lot of rejection. Is it any wonder people talk about the fragile writer ego? Hey, my ego wasn’t that fragile at first, but after hundreds (or maybe at this point thousands) of rejections, well… yeah, it’s a bit… View Post